The desperate rescue attempts continue at the site of the Chongqing landslide, but time is now clearly running out for the miners. The heavy lift helicopter, the same one that assisted at Tangjiashan, is now in full operation, and the drilling continues using 20 machines according to this report. The drilling operations have now reached 100 m below the surface and thus have reached the position of the portal. Unfortunately …

Image source: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/19/20090609/img/pwl-china-landslide-death-9-6f14af6c0f4b.html The latest news from the Chongqing landslide site is as follows: Attempts to build a tunnel to the trapped miners continue. The heavy lift helicopter is now in operation. Electric cables and a generator have been installed to provide power to the ongoing operations; Heavy rain has now reduced to drizzle, but the water depth in the barrier lake increased by a metre in 24 hours; Operations …

Image from: http://topiclinks.boston.com/photo/07Nr7zUf5l1W1 In China there is now a dramatic race against time being played out as rescuers race to reach 27 miners trapped below the Chongqing landslide. Xinhua is reporting that the two entrances to the Jiwei Mountain Iron Ore mine were blocked by the landslide. The trapped miners are likely to be able to survive for five to seven days, so there is very limited time available. Rescuers …

The landslide at Chongqing is very large – it has an estimated volume of 3.5 million cubic metres. The scale of this is well-illustrated by this image from Suomen Kuvalehti, which shows rescuers walking across the landslide debris:

Xinhua is now reporting that 79 people have been killed in the catastrophic landslide in Chongqing. In addition, 27 miners are trapped in a mine whose adit has been buried. Xinhua has also released an image of the source zone of the landslide (showing continued rockfall activity): And also the landslide deposit. It is now appears that this is a massive and catastrophic rock slope failure:

In some parts of the world, such as the Seattle area of the USA, wide area landslide warning systems are operated on the basis of rainfall thresholds. These are comparatively simple in essence – basically the combination of short term and long term rainfall that is needed to trigger landslides is determined, often using historical records of landslide events. A critical threshold is determined for the combination of these two …

Yesterday there was a special session of the Sinorock Conference in Hong Kong, focused on the Wenchuan Earthquake. This involved six presentations and then a lively round-table discussion. This is a brief review. The first talk was given by colleagues from Chengdu University of Technology on the topic of the landslides triggered by the earthquake. This was visually spectacular, emphasising the scale, density and impact of the landslides that were …

Today there was a session on the Wenchuan Earthquake at the Sinorock conference in Hong Kong. I was invited to participate in the panel discussion, for which I put together the following presentation highlighting a few critical issues: http://www.authorstream.com/player/player.swf?p=191786_633785600804989257Uploaded on authorSTREAM by Dr_Dave You should be able to review the presentation above or to download it the Powerpoint file if you wish (from here if necessary). I will write a …

The UN ISDR is today launching with a great fanfare the first Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. This report “provides hard-hitting evidence to demonstrate how, where and why disaster risk is increasing globally and presents key findings from a global analysis of disaster risk patterns and trends, including where high mortality and economic loss is concentrated. .” The report is online now and can be downloaded here. I …

The UN ISDR is today launching with a great fanfare the first Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. This report “provides hard-hitting evidence to demonstrate how, where and why disaster risk is increasing globally and presents key findings from a global analysis of disaster risk patterns and trends, including where high mortality and economic loss is concentrated. .” The report is online now and can be downloaded here. I …